All posts by: UMBC News Staff

Business Insider ranks UMBC one of America’s 50 most underrated colleges

Business Insider has placed UMBC at #32 on a list of the 50 most underrated colleges in America.

The site combined the PayScale ranking with those produced by U.S. News & World Report to discover colleges and universities with a large disparity between their college rank and their salary rank.

The group ranked more than 1,000 colleges and universities based on their reputation and graduates’ mid-career salaries, paying particular attention to schools with lower U.S. News rankings but stronger than expected career salaries.

Image: True Grit statue, fall 2015. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

UMBC celebrates launch of campaign to reconnect with 70,000 global alumni ahead of 50th

Can hundreds of committed UMBC alumni, students, faculty and staff spread the word about our exceptional public research university and its 50th anniversary to almost 70,000 alumni and the rest of the world?

The first wave of those “hundreds” – including more than 200 alumni – gathered at Homecoming 2015 in a tent on UMBC’s new campus entrance to kick off a year-long effort to do just that.

It was a festive evening where old friends reconnected and new relationships were forged. In coming together, attendees found unity in the fundamental power of unique UMBC stories across many decades to enrich lives and engage others in telling the story of the university.

The brand for UMBC’s 50th anniversary also made its debut at the event. UMBC 50: Grit and Greatness blends the pioneering spirit of the students, faculty, staff and academic leaders who built a new university in Maryland and the successes in teaching, research and diverse excellence that have thrust UMBC into the public conversation about best practices in higher education.

“Your Story Is Our Story” was a key theme of the evening, and amidst music from the UMBC Jazz Ensemble and the clinking of cocktail glasses, alumni told their stories in video booths installed for the event, or scrolled on a large screen inside the tent.

The kickoff event also featured alumni storytellers selected from diverse backgrounds and decades who shared their experiences from the stage, preceded by remarks from their fellow alumna, Adrienne Jones ’76, psychology, who serves as Speaker Pro Tem of the Maryland House of Delegates.

In her time in Annapolis, Delegate Jones has helped UMBC find the resources to grow along with its achievements and ambitions. But she also observed that “whatever I am able to accomplish for our alma mater is possible because UMBC is such a great story – your story.”

Some alumni storytellers summoned up the spirit of volunteerism to UMBC that animated the event. Diane Tichnell ’70, political science, and a member of the very first class to graduate from UMBC, recalled the opportunities that UMBC provided its very first students in 1966: “The watchword of that day was ‘innovate, innovate, innovate.’ We couldn’t do anything else.” Tichnell also challenged her fellow alumni: “Stick close to this campus. Make sure that the students now and the students in the future have the same chance.”

Other stories directly spoke to the theme of UMBC’s 50th anniversary year. Corey Fleischer ’05, ’08 M.S. mechanical engineering, and a founder of UMBC’s successful Mini-Baja racing squad, recalled taking that team from the challenges of its first races to eventual triumphs. The winner of the engineering-themed TV competition Big Brain Theory: Pure Genius told the audience: “Anything worth doing requires a significant amount of grit. And the amount of grit really helps define that total greatness.”

The stories also reminded the audience of UMBC’s power to change lives. “I learned so much from being on the UMBC campus,” said Joseph Jones ’06, social work, founder of Baltimore’s Center for Urban Families (CFUF). Encouraged by President Hrabowski to earn his degree at UMBC after working past a troubled youth that included a stint in jail, Jones observed that “I learned how to be a scientist in social services by coming to this honors university.”

Reflecting on the many stories told that night, President Freeman A. Hrabowski, III observed “In each case, it was the story of a transformation. Of grit, and then, of what I want to call ‘moments of greatness.’ It is not that we, as an institution, are great. It is that we aspire to greatness and we have moments of greatness.”

The upcoming year will be filled with many more stories of grit and greatness. And, as with any kickoff, this is just the beginning. And UMBC is seeking many more of the “hundreds” of alumni who will volunteer to help the university forge personal connections with thousands of alumni over the coming year.

There are other ways to get involved as well. The organizers of the university’s 50 anniversary celebrations are seeking ideas for events that celebrate UMBC’s legacy and look to the university’s future as well. There is even a competition open to alumni and the university to propose ideas for events that will connect more alumni to UMBC in its anniversary year and provide support and funding to make them happen.

You can be part of the party. And part of the story. Go to 50.umbc.edu to find out more.

Image: Guests at UMBC 50th anniversary launch celebration. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Ramon Goings spotlights possible harm to minority-serving institutions from new teacher-prep policy

Writing on the website Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, Ramon B. Goings raises red flags about a federal regulation-in-the-making that will require states to come up with formulas to evaluate teacher-education programs.

ramongoingsGoings, the program coordinator of the Sherman STEM Teacher Scholars Program, and co-author Larry J. Walker, an educational consultant, argue that such evaluations are likely to threaten minority-serving institutions (MSIs) more than other higher-education institutions because MSIs typically enroll a higher proportion of students underprepared for college work. If teacher- preparation programs don’t meet the new standards, they may lose federal funding, including grants that support students who agree to teach in high-poverty schools.

“While it is important to hold universities accountable for preparing teachers [well] … policymakers must consider the important role of MSIs in educating [aspiring teachers] of color,” Goings and Walker write.

Despite school districts’ increased interest in hiring minority teachers, the regulation could discourage talented but underprepared students from pursuing education majors by, for example, imposing minimum test-score requirements. The teacher-prep programs either adopt the federally mandated standards or risk losing federal funds, including grants that draw students.

Either way, according to the authors, the capacity of the institutions to graduate dedicated minority teachers for underserved schools would be undercut.

Walker and Goings urge states to carefully consider the impact of the new standards. If states want to diversify their K-12 teaching workforce, the authors write, they must find ways to support MSIs in their longstanding contributions to the preparation of teachers of color.

In addition to his position at UMBC, Goings is a doctoral candidate in urban educational leadership at Morgan State University

Read the article here.

President Hrabowski joins new panel to examine future of undergraduate education

President Hrabowski will serve as a member of the Commission on the Future of Undergraduate Education, a panel of experts tasked with studying the impact and effectiveness of the nation’s existing educational systems and identifying the challenges and opportunities facing higher education.

The panel, formed by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, will use research drawn from higher education institutions across the country to forecast the future of the nation’s education needs and offer recommendations to ensure undergraduate education remains accessible for students from all backgrounds.

The three-year initiative, led by co-chairs Michael McPherson, President of the Spencer Foundation, and Roger Ferguson, TIAA-CREF President and CEO, includes expertise of national leaders in education, business, and government. The commission is funded with $2.2 million from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Tinoosh Mohsenin receives NSF grant for wearable biomedical computing tech

CSEE Professor Tinoosh Mohsenin received a $212,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for a three-year project that will develop a heterogeneous ultra low-power accelerator for wearable biomedical computing. The work will be done in collaboration with researchers at George Mason University and students in the UMBC Energy Efficient High Performance Computing Lab.

With the rapid advances in small, low-cost wearable computing technologies, there is a tremendous opportunity to develop personal health monitoring devices capable of continuous vigilant monitoring of physiological signals. Wearable biomedical devices have the potential to reduce the morbidity, mortality, and economic cost associated with many chronic diseases by enabling early intervention and preventing costly hospitalizations. These low-power systems require to have the capacity to provide fast and accurate processing and interpretation of vast amounts of data and generate smart alarms only when warranted. The project will build the foundation of the next generation of heterogeneous biomedical signal processing platforms that can address the current and future generation energy-efficiency requirements and computational demands.

Image: Tinoosh Mohsenin and research team. Photo courtesy CSEE.

Roundup: UMBC in the News

One of the things that makes UMBC great is how wonderful our alumni, students, faculty, and staff are. Because of these amazing people, UMBC often finds itself “in the news,” so each week, we’ll be sharing with you a round-up of the most newsworthy achievements from our community.

For more UMBC news, head to the Insights blog!

Helping kids with asthma breathe easier

UMBC team to develop wearable system to track asthma triggers in pediatric patients.

An innovative team of researchers working across engineering fields has received a nearly $2 million award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) PRISMS program to develop a comprehensive system to monitor critical environmental asthma triggers and physiological status indicators for pediatric asthma patients.

Living with asthma, a chronic disease caused by the inflammation of the airway, can substantially impact a person’s well-being and, if not controlled, can be life threatening. Asthma prevalence has increased over the past decade to now impact 25.7 million adults and 7.1 million children in the United States, with disproportionately high rates of asthma and low levels of asthma control among children in urban and minority groups.

The grant is led by UMBC’s Center for Advanced Sensor Technology (CAST). UMBC PIs Yordan Kostov and Govind Rao, assistant director and director of CAST, respectively, teamed up with Southern Methodist University psychology professors and asthma experts Thomas Ritz and Alicia Meuret, as well as UMBC computer science and electrical engineering (CSEE) faculty Ryan Robucci and Nilanjan Banerjee, and chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering (CBEE) faculty Xudong Ge and Chris Hennigan.

The wearable asthma monitoring system they are developing will include technology that measures environmental triggers, such as air pollution, pollen, dust, smoke and pet hair, and a monitor that measures physiological triggers, such as level of physical activity and emotional stress. Both types of triggers can exacerbate asthma symptoms. Studies on existing oxygen and carbon dioxide sensors will be analyzed and applied to the development of this technology.

The monitoring system will be small enough to be worn by the patient in the form of a pendent, explains Yordan Kostov, research professor in CBEE and adjunct professor in CSEE. He notes that although simple asthma trigger monitoring systems do exist, they have had limited success due to the need to measure a great variety of potential asthma triggers.

“A wide range of sensors are being developed as part of this project, including breathing rate detection sensors, particle monitoring sensors, and carbon dioxide and oxygen sensors,” Banerjee explains. “Using them together, for the first time, we will be able to accurately determine reliable triggers of asthma amongst children.”

The researchers anticipate these highly accurate measurements will have a significant impact on pediatric asthma patients’ well-being. As Kostov describes, “The monitoring system will help patients objectively determine when and why they experienced the asthma symptoms.”

Children with asthma and their parents can have difficulty noticing or recalling environmental factors that have triggered asthma attacks. Kostov notes that this problem increases families’ anxiety, as it can make attacks less predictable and more frequent, and that’s where this new technology can help. The monitoring system will enable asthma patients and physicians decode correlations between asthma symptoms and environmental factors, improving their ability to prevent future attacks and decreasing their anxiety around anticipating those attacks.

Ryan Robucci, assistant professor of CSEE, hones in on a major factor, behind the scenes, that makes this team’s work so innovative and compelling. The project’s integrated, interdisciplinary approach allows the research team to explore scientific questions that require new sensors, systems, data collection, analytics, and domain expertise to find answers.

“The strength of this NIH project is in its diverse team,” says Nilanjan Banerjee, assistant professor of CSEE. “We have experts in chemical engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, and experts who work closely with individuals suffering from asthma.”

What unites them all, explains Chris Hennigan, assistant professor of CBEE, is the gratification and high motivation they feel in working on a problem that affects so many children. Govind Rao, professor in CBEE agrees. His definition of success for this work is ultimately developing “a suite of sensors that help children better manage chronic asthma and lead better lives.”

Image: UMBC asthma monitor research team from the departments of chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering (CBEE) and computer science and electrical engineering (CSEE), with student researchers. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11.

Lisa Gray discusses the role of education, awareness, and empowerment in raising young girls to be politically and socially conscious

lisa_gray_2015Following the #BlackLivesMatter and #SayHerName movement over the past year, WEAA’s The Marc Steiner Show hosted a panel discussion on how parents and educators are incorporating the living history of the events which sparked these two social movements into lessons for their children and students, especially young girls of color.

Lisa Gray, director of student life for cultural and spiritual diversity, participated in the discussion and shared her experiences as a leader for cultural diversity on campus, and as a mother of an 11 year-old daughter growing up in an era where these social justice issues are quickly rising to the surface.

During the program, Gray described the importance of connecting her daughter with her professional work and exposing her to powerful black female leaders who can serve as role models. “I think we have to be intentional about really digging for those role models that are there,” said Gray.

Listen to the full segment »

Spotlight on bwtech@UMBC

Alumni Delali Dzirasa ’04, computer engineering, and Andrew Mavronicolas ’14, information systems, were recently featured in a SmartLogic video promoting bwtech@UMBC. Both alumni run companies based in the research park: Dzirasa is the president of the software company Fearless Solutions, and Mavronicolas is co-founder of Backpack ‘Em, an online intra-campus exchange platform. Ellen Hemmerly, executive director of bwtech, is also featured. Watch the whole clip here:

Lynne Schaefer, administration and finance, named chair of EACUBO

StrategicPlanning-4949Lynne Schaefer, Vice President, Administration and Finance, has been named chair of the Eastern Association of College and University Business Officers (EACUBO), effectively October 13.

Schaefer has been actively involved in the association for nearly 10 years, previously serving as chair of the region’s Research Universities Constituent Council. In 2010, she was elected to the board of directors, where she helped to develop and implement a mentoring program for senior finance and administration leaders. She has also represented the region’s chapter as part of the national Research Universities Council, where she helped develop special programming relevant to business officers at research universities.

“I am honored to serve as chair of this organization of my peers and colleagues. This is a time when our profession is increasingly challenged to support and assist our institutions to strategically find a way forward through a rapidly changing environment and increasing unknowns,” said Schaefer.

She rose to chair of EACUBO after being elected as vice chair in 2013. The leadership position is a two-year commitment.

EACUBO is an affiliate of the NACUBO. Its mission is to foster the professional development of its membership through educational programs, committee activities, and informal exchanges on current issues. Membership includes public and private colleges, universities, and other post-secondary institutions, as well as other agencies and for-profit organizations affiliated with or serving with higher education.

 

 

President Hrabowski discusses how his experiences during the Civil Rights movement inspired his career in education

In a recent interview on PBS’s Tavis Smiley Show, President Hrabowski shared how his experiences as a young boy during the Civil Rights movement shaped his future in higher education and inspired his pursuit of STEM achievement for students of all backgrounds.

Much of the discussion revolved around topics addressed in Dr. Hrabowski’s latest book, Holding Fast to Dreams.

Dr. Hrabowski recounted meeting Martin Luther King, Jr. and participating in a peaceful march, which led to his arrest. He also commented on how the experience compelled him, and many others, to take a more active role supporting the community and each other. “We Americans have the right to say when we think something is wrong, and that we can make a difference,” said Dr. Hrabowski.

During the interview, Dr. Hrabowski also addressed public perception of standardized tests, noting that while we need to be mindful of the limitations of test scores as a measure of success in student achievement, they serve an important role in the educational process.

“We want to make sure we’re not simply testing and penalizing children, but tests are important,” he said.

Dr. Hrabowski also emphasized the importance of increased support for all students. “We have to make sure we’re giving children, families, and teachers the support they need in ensuring that the child learns how to do well on standardized tests,” he said.

fah-tavis-smiley-video

Roundup: UMBC in the News

One of the things that makes UMBC great is how wonderful our alumni, students, faculty, and staff are. Because of these amazing people, UMBC often finds itself “in the news,” so each week, we’ll be sharing with you a round-up of the most newsworthy achievements from our community.

Read more at UMBC Insights!

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